AND THE HEAT GOES ON... & on (Part 175m)

AND THE HEAT GOES ON… & on (Part 175m)

The man in charge of the audit team started talking as soon as I approached. Bert, ever the calm one, politely told him to “back off” and asked me what had happened. I’m the excitable one and I responded as was probably expected. Basically I stated, excitedly, that the time for the counting of the cash had far exceeded reasonable expectations and the customers in the lobby were getting upset. I told them that by the time I told the tellers to go ahead and serve the customers we had upwards of twenty people waiting in the lobby and cars at the drive up were blocking the sidewalk. At that point Bert told the audit person that I was right in releasing the tellers and then had the man follow him to the elevator. Less than fifteen minutes later he was back and calling the people who’d come with him together and told them to gather their things and they would be leaving. The final result was that Bert called the manager of the accounting firm and set up a meeting to have him come to the bank before going forward with another try at the examination. I’d expected to have something said to me by either Bert or my immediate supervisor, Hobie, but nothing was forthcoming… at least at that time. However, I spent the rest of the day waiting… and waiting. It made for a long day. By the time the last of us left for the day nothing had been said. I wasn’t going to ‘push’ the matter but I truly wished I knew what was ahead for me.

The time on the trip home was taken up wondering just what we’d find when the race car was unloaded that night. I won’t go into needless detail except to say the problem was initially caused when Cliffy was pushed into the guard rail at our regular track that Saturday night. Simply put, when he hit the engine shifted forward by about two inches and caused the driveshaft to move as well. That condition caused the oil seal at the back of the transmission to eventually fail. Metal gears without proper lubrication will fail and they did. What we’d all initially thought it would be a simple task to just replace the transmission. It turned out to be a whole lot more. The car had been built by Cliffy’s father and was now four years old. It had been involved in many crashes and subsequently repaired many times. With the motor and transmission out of the chassis a thorough inspection of it was made. Cliffy’s father, who had pretty much stayed out of the race car operation over the Summer, got involved. In so doing  a number of things were discovered. When he finished he made a declaration that the car should be junked and not repaired again as the metal was “soft”. I don’t think any of us were truly shocked by his comment but it was something we didn’t want to hear.

To start with we didn’t have the money. Second, Cliffy wanted to finish out the season at our Saturday night track so we’d get some money from the season long point fund. We’d been in 5th place before we crashed and that was the cut-off point for any ‘real’ money. So, to even think about that we had to fix the car. Upon hearing our decision Cliffy’s father threw up his hands and walked out of the garage. By the time we left that night we had a pretty good idea that there would be late nights leading up to Saturday… and there were. A couple of the local racers showed up to give a helping hand and by Saturday afternoon when we loaded the car on the hauler we had about 95% of the ’to do’ list completed. The cost of this, to me, was in having a wife who hardly spoke to me at all. I wasn’t relegated to the sofa and I rationalized it by continually thinking that the season was almost over. The time I spent at home was minimal. With little sleep and the chores around the house piling up I was not a person anyone wanted to be around.The overriding question for all of us was what would happen when the car went out on the track.

Cliffy had been in contact with C J a couple of times during the week and he’d fully recovered from his crash on Sunday. Surprisingly, other than body damage, repairs to his car took less time than ours. When we pulled into the pits it was hard to believe it was the same car that I’d watched fly over the wall and out of the track  It was all painted up and renumbered. We noticed there was a new car that had shown up. Supposedly, the driver was a former track champion at the track located close to the city. The car was bit ‘radical’ because it was so low and soon the ‘chatter’ around the pits was it was illegal.  But Butch, the track steward, announced over the PA system that it was cleared to race. Aside from the radical nature of the vehicle there was one other interesting feature of the new crew and crew… the driver’s wife. The note in my DayTimer says “WOW” with many exclamation points following it.

Probably close to 50, she still had her ‘looks’ as well as her shape… and she knew it. As the people in the pits went over to look at the car they spent equally as much time looking at her. Still Summer, she was dressed for it. I’m not normally a breast man but my notes read “halter top with cleavage!”… and I can still picture her as I stared at her. Her shorts weren’t particularly short but I was sure that if I was able to stay around that pit area I’d get some kind of a panty peek before the night was over.

Practice was cut short because someone leaked rear end oil on the track. Even after a concerted effort to clean the surface it was deemed too oily for our class of cars to compete. The promotor shuffled the order of classes so that we’d be qualifying last hoping that there would be some ’bite’ to the track for us. Still in the third and strongest heat, we were at least fortunate to start on the ‘pole’, or in  the first position… and Cliffy took advantage of it by leading every lap. The new driver, because of his reputation, also was in it but started last. At the end of the 10 laps he was third. He’d passed ten of the fastest cars at the track in just ten laps. Needles to say the conversation in the pits was all about him. Listening to some the people talking about it got me to thinking it would be a good time to wander down to his pit area to see what I could see… about his wife.

Most of the driver’s wives sat together in one area of the grandstand. But the wife of this driver had decided to stay in the pit area. When I got there she was sitting on the bed of the hauler in a folding chair looking down on the activity around her husband’s car. I couldn’t see much as it was now dark and the lights in the pits were minimal. So, like a few of the other onlookers, I wandered over to get a closer look at the car. This was only my second year working on cars in this division so I really couldn’t discern anything of interest. Because the night’s schedule had been changed the track officials were making announcements over the PA system. The clarity of them was always marginal and someone in the crew called to the woman to take notes of what was being broadcast. I was looking at her when she stood up and took a few steps… and when she fell. Even with the noise of the engines I could hear her scream as she disappeared from my view. I jumped up on the bed of the hauler and saw that she’d fallen into a bin-like area between the tracks for the wheels of the race car to ride on.

To be continued…